The city’s sounds, smells, and sights are intoxicating. In the morning people are quiet. Falling in like cattle, some step up to step down the stairs. Their shoe clicks vary, soft rubber, fine leather, hard plastic, tapping against weathered stone floors, metal escalators, concrete streets, and metal bridges.

I told them they were on their own. My daughter was startled, her one friend gasped with excitement and the most sensible of all of her friends volunteered to be the mom friend. Without hesitation, I let them go.

XRT’s #AllVinylSaturday reminded me of the beauty of the record album. The reason why an artist makes an album is the same as me making a photo album. It’s a collection. There’s a theme. A common thread that runs through it. And listening to an album in its totality, you can fully appreciate the breadth of the artist’s talent. What a gift.

Like a champ, yes, that is how I feel this morning. As if I ran a relay race in record time last night, with friends and family cheering my team and me on, all the way to the finish line. This morning’s quote about the absence of fear nailed this morning’s mood.

On this last day of the year, I could focus on the worst parts of 2017, but that’s foolhardy. Who wants to look at life half empty, when it is so full of promise? Not I. For that reason, I’m going to say goodbye to this year with love and admiration for the friends and family who brought me so much joy, so that I could return it. As I look ahead to 2018, I know in my heart and mind there is nowhere to go but up.

My Aunt Karen called me last night. And did we have a gab! I am named after her, a point of pride for me, and at some point in the conversation, we talked about our shared name. I love my name! I love how both Karen and Craven are two syllables and how each start and end with the same consonant sound. Before I even came to appreciate those things, I first loved that I was named after my mom’s younger sister.

I don’t normally have Thursday nights free and I was excited to get out. I’m currently grounded from yoga and walking the dogs and was desperately in need of being around people. I loved listening in on their conversations, watching them react and interact with the art.

I’ve always wondered without journalism where we would be? What if no one photographed Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, or September 11, no one documented the Civil Rights Movement or Women’s March, nothing to intricately connect our shared experiences like fine Irish lace? Outside of our those shared experiences, each family needs its own history keeper. Each family should know its own truths. Who knew that when my mother gave me a Christmas ornament 24-years ago that its meaning was not so much about the trajectory of my career, but more about my role in this family, its history keeper?

Those who know me well, know how much coffee is part of my morning routine. I used to smoke. Just like milk and sugar in my coffee, my cigarettes loved red wine and coffee. I was the justice of the peace, jubilantly joining and blessing the unions of cigarettes and coffee and cigarettes and red wine. Kiss the bride, kiss the bride. I realize now my cigarettes were hardly monogamous, but they were happy couples all right. I remember impatiently sitting at Billy’s Grill, a diner on the South Side on Southwest Highway, and waiting for my coffee just so I could light up. That behavior is evidence that every relationship can get tense.

Instead of starting the day disgruntled by another grey day, I chose to make my own sunshine. My first ray of sunshine came in the form of my coffee cup. Choosing the right cup is critical in setting the tone for the day.